365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

T-shirt #289 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden

T-shirt #289 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden

My friend Tom Meyers, better known as the Lord of Chaos, is visiting, and we are playing Dungeons and Dragons, specifically Pathfinder (which is D&D 3.5, modified by Paizo), so these entries during his visit will be brief. See him pictures in this same shirt as we share a love for this band: 10,000 Maniacs, whom I wrote about it originally in T-shirt #257 and featured my tickets.

Here's a short interview with him about his love of 10,000 Maniacs.

Me: Do you remember when you first learned about 10,000 Maniacs?

LOC: I first learned about 10,000 Maniacs walking through the northern end of Trowbridge Hall some time after we graduated with my friend Chris Tower. We heard someone playing the Wishing Chair album and maybe the song "Back of the Moon." I was struck viscerally with the way the main vocalist phrased words and sentences in the lyrics and the sound of her voice. I was captured by it. For me, it became the most meaningful music of the time.

When I listened to 10,000 Maniacs now, the music transports me to those times in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It brings me backs to specific times and feelings and emotions to when I first heard the song. Listening to a song today, I can go back to when I first heard it, how I felt then, what was happening.

I really like the fact that they were contrary to the popular music of the time. They were unique, different, and non-commercial.

In My Tribe transformed me more than The Wishing Chair because I really felt that it was a more mature sound. It was better mixed and better produced. I knew a guy who hated that the band sang about things that were important, but I loved that about it. And another thing, the poster, the images, the patch, the symbols, all of the visual elements were important to me. And this album propelled 10,000 Maniacs to my number one favorite musical group, and the album made it imperative that I see them live. It was one of the first albums I actively shared with other people, telling people "you have to listen to this. It's awesome."

I have seen the band six times in concert. The last of which, during the Our Time in Eden tour, I had front row seats, and I felt that Natalie was making eye contact with me, singing to me, and could tell that I was the band's biggest fan. I can't listen to 10,000 Maniacs without being reminded of my feelings during those years for a woman I knew in law school.

Me: What is your favorite 10,000 Maniacs album?LOC: That is a very difficult question. If I have to choose one album, I would choose their last: Our Time In Eden.

Me: Rank the album in terms of your favorites?

LOC: I don't count albums after Natalie Merchant left the band. They are all very closely ranked but here goes:

Check out Sense of Doubt blog

Hi. Thanks for reading. I closed out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. Currently, I am enjoying a hiatus of total non-transmission or publication for an as yet undetermined period of time. As of the posting of this note (and it's no April Fool's) on 1404.01, I have some unfinished T-shirt blog entries, which will be posted over the next two weeks. After some more blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. MEANWHILE, I am posting weekly and somewhat at random over on SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG.

Over there, you will find THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book

reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1404.01

SiJ - Daguérose

The Catalanian Tapes

ZENИTH

Original Introductory Text

Maybe it's narcissism. I have been wanting to increase my blog presence, and I wanted something that was easy to update, much like my frequent "Facebookery." Hence, 365 T-Shirts. I have a lot of T-Shirts. Some may say that I am somewhat compulsive about buying T-Shirts, owning them, wearing them. Earlier this year (as the blog would have been better started on January 1st), I wondered if I had 365 different T-Shirts. I don't know. Now, obviously, I could count them, but where is the fun in that? Better to post a picture of one per day for an entire year to test whether or not I run out of shirts before 365 days have passed. This hobby means taking and displaying a lot of pictures of me, which is not a prospect that I find thrilling. But the pride of embracing my geeky side and my obvious egotism make for a fine marriage in what I hope will be seen as a whimsical blog for occasional viewing, if not even a regular check in for many of my friends new and old. Thus, I present 365 T-shirts, launched on 1303.22 or as others call it March 22, 2013. Now watch as I fail to keep it going for even a week...